I’ve been thinking a lot about the girls and the potential mountain BW will need to climb to get them to warm up to her.
Listen, I don’t know if we know it was a cheating situation (I personally don’t care which way), but I need to use the example of my father cheating: the “other woman” was my nemesis. I had gotten to know her first, I was about 8 years old, and when I perceived her as a threat to my family, I soon developed a hatred for anything I knew she favored: foods, TV shows, music, even favorite colors. Even her NAME. To this day, as a near-30-year-old, I won’t say that name. My favorite professor shares the same name, and she’s highly esteemed with a PhD and everything but she lets her students call her Dr. (name) because she wants to develop closer bonds with us. And I wish so dearly that I could partake in that friendship-building, but I just won’t say her name. She’s still Dr. (last name) to me. Not even her NAME, y’all. And again, I’m not saying that B was definitely “the other woman,” but due to the media circus and rumors and Alice’s aggressive assertions surrounding this chaos, the children probably perceive her as a homewrecker anyway.
I never had therapy as a child; I don’t talk about it in therapy now. (Can you tell?) It looms over me. I just pray those girls receive good, effective, life-changing therapy before or while they’re meeting B so that they can develop the mindfulness and thinking skills to better analyze their feelings, closely examine the situation, eventually accept those circumstances for what they are, embrace their father again, and ultimately give B a chance to love them and give themselves permission to love her back.
Even if B is “the other woman,” their mother is an abuser—the girls don’t owe her their loyalty. Full-stop. And maybe, God willing, they’ll one day understand why their father had to leave, and why their father’s heart wandered elsewhere, towards someone else.
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